Wisconsin recall: Barrett outspent on TV

He’s supposed to be the candidate of the establishment – the Democrat endorsed by Herb Kohl and Dave Obey, who’s polling the best in the Wisconsin recall general election.

Yet so far, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is getting outspent more than two to one in the fight for the Democratic nomination to take on Gov. Scott Walker, according to a GOP media-tracking source.

Barrett’s campaign has spent about $313,000 on TV ads between April 10 and April 23, the source said – not a bad sum for a candidate who’s been in the race for about two weeks.

But Barrett’s primary opponent, former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, has a combined $758,000 in TV ads behind her effort. Only $224,000 of that comes from her campaign – on that front, Barrett’s winning the spending war. Falk, however, has also gotten about $534,000 in backup from a labor-backed independent group, Wisconsin for Falk, which spent that sum on ads only between April 12 and 17.

Polling shows Barrett is a comfortable favorite, though perhaps not a lock, in the primary. Maggie and I wrote Sunday about the scale of labor’s investment in the primary, and the tension between Democratic and labor goals in the race – tension that’s playing out on the financial side in a campaign where Scott Walker and the RGA have already reserved $4.4 million in airtime.